The brown-eared arasari Pteroglossus castanotis belongs, of course, to toucans. It lives in the central and southeastern parts of South America.
By the way, toucans are woodpeckers, if you didn't know... Which looks like a mockery on the part of ornithologists, of course. They are woodpeckers themselves!
The total body length of this rather large bird is up to 45 cm, and the weight is up to 250 g. The bill is black with a wide longitudinal ochreous-yellow stripe on the upper mandible, extending from its base to the apex. At the base, the beak is bordered by a narrow yellow stripe, the edges of the upper beak are also yellow.
There is an untrimmed patch of blue around the eyes. The head and neck are dark, chestnut brown, and the top of the head is black in some forms. The chest and abdomen are yellow with a bright red transverse stripe in the middle.
Among all stork marabou, it is distinguished by the most impressive size. The marabou is divided into three subspecies: Indian, African, and Javanese. Here we see the African marabou Leptoptilos crumeniferus. These birds have a memorable appearance, but prosaically they often live near large landfills, where they look for food, and a bare neck and head without feathers helps to keep their bodies clean.
The African marabou reaches a height of more than one and a half meters and weighs 8.5-10 kg.
There is a peculiar sac in the neck area that connects to the nostrils. It can inflate and reach 40 cm in diameter. In young individuals, it is practically absent, its growth occurs during the growth of the bird. Previously, it was believed that birds put food in it in reserve, but it turned out that this outgrowth is used only during mating games and so that the bird can put its head on it at rest.
Every year from November to March in Michoacan, Mexico, you can see a real miracle: the migration of monarch butterflies.
Читать полностью…Owls love the game of hide-and-seek and masterfully blend in with their surroundings.
Читать полностью…Although squirrels live longer in captivity than in nature, they do not reproduce.
Читать полностью…The pigment luciferin is responsible for the bioluminescence of fireflies.
This pigment is oxidized by a certain enzyme, resulting in the release of excess energy in the form of light.
The efficiency of this light radiation in fireflies is extremely high and ranges from 87% to 98%. For comparison, in an incandescent lamp, only 5% of the energy goes into the light, the rest goes into heat.
Lunch of the African giant snail, whose shell can reach the size of an adult's fist.
Читать полностью…Brazilian jabiru Jabiru mycteria is in search of a delicacy, and it's a marbled marsh eel!
The yabir belongs to the storks and is distributed in tropical America from southern Mexico to Uruguay and northern Argentina, but in this vast area there are only small patches of individual nesting sites of birds.
Yabiru chooses coastal areas of rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands as habitats. In their habitats, yabiru form large colonies consisting of several hundred birds.
The body length of this stork reaches 1.2 m, and the wingspan is 2.6 m, the beak is up to 30 cm. The plumage is predominantly white, contrasting with black legs, beak, black bare scalp and part of the neck.
It is noteworthy that the eye color of the females is yellow, and the males are black. The Brazilian yabiru is able to inflate the air bag on the neck with a bulky bubble.
Yabiru feed on fish, shellfish and amphibians, sometimes reptiles and small mammals also fall into their menu.
In China, the little panda is considered a fire fox.
So Mozilla developers have placed the image of a panda, not a fox, as the Firefox logo.
It is almost impossible to tame a wild otter.
But a captive-born animal can still make friends with a human